


planting

by Keturagh



Series: False Fruit [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Lavellan (Dragon Age) Has Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:21:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21933640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keturagh/pseuds/Keturagh
Summary: This is what he has always known best: the balance of a person’s spirit held within their flesh —
Series: False Fruit [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1579504
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	planting

**“The world became a bag of seeds. This is no one’s fault. Nothing is anyone’s fault, which is something we must remember. The world is just a bag of seeds, and there is nowhere for the seeds to be planted.” (The Difference Between Sadness and Suffering, Zachary Schomburg, Fjords)**

\--

The first time he holds her, she is knee-deep in the snow and the harsh stones rise above them to either side through the tumbling snow.

“I am worthless,” he is certain he hears her say, but it is muffled, spoken into his coat.

“Herald?” He says, shaking her shoulders gently.

Now he kneels beside her, again, in the snow, and stays Cole from reaching down to embrace her.

“Thank you, Cole, but she does not want to be touched.”

“She does,” the spirit whispers, insistent. “Yearning, a flight of fluttering thoughts, too many, too far away, she begs, all full of yesterdays, someone: please hold her to the earth.”

Solas looks back down at their Inquisitor. Considers.

He nods, slowly. “But be wary of what she actually asks for.”

Cole kneels down. He places his arms around her shaking shoulders - very light, for a hug. Just a small pressure - simple warmth.

As before, her arms strike out against the touch.

Her silent, rocking panic crescendos to a wail. It is not like a child’s cry, it is not like an animal’s screech. It is the sound of an Elvhen spirit rending, and it tears his heart apart.

“Cole, enough!” Solas moves to draw the spirit gently back from the embrace. “What she needs and what she accepts may be different things. She may not have the strength to take what you would give her.”

Cole stumbles back, blinking wide, clearly overwhelmed by what he reads within the woman whose body is shaking in the snow. His hands rise to his face. “I can help. I can untwist the - the thing inside her.”

She has quieted again, left to cradle herself. For a moment, Solas is tempted to empower Cole to move within her. Not as Compassion once could have, as a spirit pure of form. But in this strange new state of being, still Cole is not powerless to know what she needs. He could ease her spirit, Solas knows.

“She has said no, Cole,” he says quietly, and folds his hands behind his back, and his toes melt into the snow. He can feel the cold even through the spellwork on his wraps; this journey has been long, everyone’s strength failing and their endurance wearing thin. The battles bloody and the foes unnerving. He should have measured this strain on her spirit. They should not have pressed on; had she insisted out of a lack of self-awareness? Stubbornness?

Cole sits beside him. Then, possibly reading something from her, he stands and retreats three paces away. Then he sits again.

Solas stands and waits. He wants to learn what he might say, to soothe her safely through her tremors. He wants to learn how he may touch her - not to stop her, only to anchor her, so that she may remember her body’s strength.

He wants to be a presence that tells her she is safe.

This is what he has always known best: the balance of a person’s spirit held within their flesh — the shape of it manifesting, pure, within the Fade. He is well-positioned to calm her spirit and he just wants to be useful to her, he explains to himself.

He wants nothing else but to be useful.

He wants to learn how to care for her only to keep her safe. This leader - their figurehead. A mage, an elf, and in pain.

She gropes at her own neck. She whispers something; Solas looks to Cole, then takes a step forward to better hear her.

“I don’t have a heartbeat,” she says again, and he hears the fear sharp in her voice.

He pauses.

Considers.

She digs her fingers into her neck, rapid, frantic.

He does not know how to not touch her and yet touch her. He does not know what to say to help her have faith in her body’s form. But he wants to learn. So he observes how she soothes herself. He notes the places she puts pressure on her arms, her head, her legs. He studies the shape of her breathing. He memorizes the small little phrases he can barely hear her whisper to herself. And when she is still, and her gaze comes back into focus, and he sees her face twist from desperate, wild fear to poignant, and needless, embarrassment, he is there with a small, accepting smile. With gentle eyes and his hand offered out. He stands beside her, not yet knowing how to hold her up — but ready to help her rise.


End file.
